He remembers
by silentlyatnight
Summary: Fabian remembers Amelia and her family.


**The Golden Snitch, Beauxbatons, Guinefort: **  
**\- [Event] Santa Claus is coming to town (Christmas Countdown): Write a story about love and loss + (emotion) love**

**Since I couldn't find any information about birthdates and such, for the purpose of this story, I imagine Amelia being the oldest, Edgar being the middle child, and Alfred (Susan's father) the youngest. I also made it so that Amelia Bones' family was murdered before Fabian and Gideon are killed, too.**

* * *

Fabian remembers Amelia Bones.

He remembers that time when, a year after finishing Hogwarts herself, she was there again, waiting on the platform 9 3/4 to pick her brothers up. On her face, childlike features were still present, but her large eyes were shining with mirth as she hugged Edgar, so much taller than her, and twirled eleven-year-old Alfred around in her arms. Later, she brought her hand up to her round, rosy cheeks, claiming they were sore from laughing, but she clearly felt no regret.

Fabian remembers that laugh. It was high and lighthearted, so spontaneous that she threw her head back, so loud that it infected Fabian, too, as Gideon and he sat nearby on their trunks and scanned the crowd of parents, looking for their father.

He remembers thinking, "What a beautiful laugh," as Amelia tickled Alfred with the complicity of Edgar, who was also pulling at her long braided hair.

He remembers Mrs. Bones' voice, who gently reprimanded them, her tone fond and amused, her face more angular than Amelia's, whose traits were still softenend by youth and happiness.

Fabian remembers the Bones family.

He remembers the taste of Vera Bones' chocolate biscuits, shared by Alfred with Gideon and him in the common room, after they had befriended him.

He remembers Edgar's seventeenth birthday, when Alfred asked Gideon and him to come, too, so he wouldn't feel uncomfortable. He remembers the anticipation mounting within him, knowing that he'd get to see Amelia again, and his shyness and trepidation at being around people who were older than him. But that vanished when Mr. Bones patted him on his shoulder encouragingly, his hands big and warm.

He even remembers that time when those very same hands saved Molly's cat, getting him out of the way of a speeding car just in time, and then bandaging its paw the Muggle way because there were too many Muggle bystanders, and the blood needed to be stopped as soon as possible. That was when Molly's interest in Muggle started developping, thanks to Mr. Bones.

Fabian remembers them all. Their faces, their voices, their friendly and helpful expressions even towards people who were mere acquaintances as the Prewetts were, at first. He remembers their warmth. Their capacity to love.

And suddenly, Fabian remembers that time when his father hugged him so tight that he struggled to breathe, the kind of hug that had become more and more frequent during the war. Fabian remembers the blood on his father's clothes, the horror in his eyes, and the lump growing in his own throat without a reason.

He remembers thinking of Amelia's laugh in that very same moment, of how beautiful and cheerful that sound was, and he found himself wishing to hear it one more time, to smile with her, and to bring his father along, because if his father could witness it with his own ears, he would be infected with laughter, too, and his desperation would subside.

Alas, it was not to be.

Fabian remembers the Bones family funeral. Amelia sat, unmoving, in front of her family members' coffins, her blank and lost gaze mirrored in Alfred's eyes. They were holding each other's hand in a vice grip, their sets of shoulders rigid.

For a brief moment, Fabian felt close to them, lost at the lack of Edgar at their side. The three siblings had been inseparable, and stupidly, Fabian had at first wondered where their brother was, before counting the coffins, both white and black. Then, he felt almost guilty at sharing a pain, a grief, which he was not entitled to.

He remembers trying to let it go alongside with his wish to sit next to them and hear Amelia's laugh once again.

Fabian remembers Amelia Bones when they meet again. But perhaps, he remembers a different person, one whose jaw was not so set and squared, because there had never been so much fear, covered by anger, inside of her. And the pain engraved behind her eyes and in the lines around them clashes with the laughter that still resounds in Fabian's ears.

Fabian remembers Amelia Bones.

But it's the wrong Amelia Bones.

_(He wishes he had more time to discover that there never were two Amelias, just one so deeply hurt that she needed to learn to live and laugh again.)_


End file.
